America at war! (1941–) – Part 3

3903

PROCLAMATION 2607
“I Am An American Day,” 1944

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 6, 1944

WHEREAS Public Resolution 67, approved May 3, 1940 (54 Stat. 178), provides in part:

That the third Sunday in May each year be, and hereby is, set aside as Citizenship Day and that the President of the United States la hereby authorized and requested to issue annually a proclamation setting aside that day as a public occasion for the recognition of all who, by coming of age or naturalization, have attained the status of citizenship, and the day shall be designated as “I Am An American Day.”

That the civil and educational authorities of States, counties, cities, and towns be, and they are hereby, urged to make plans for the proper observance of this day and for the full instruction of future citizens in their responsibilities and opportunities as citizens of the United States and of the States and localities in which they reside.

WHEREAS our nation has been enriched, both spiritually and materially, by the naturalization of many thousands of foreign-born men and women, and by the coming of age of great numbers of our youth, who have thereby achieved the full stature of citizenship; and

WHEREAS these citizens have strengthened our country by their services at home and on the battlefield:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, pursuant to the aforesaid public resolution, do hereby designate Sunday, May 21, 1944, as “I Am An American Day,” and do set that day aside as a public occasion for the honoring of American citizenship by giving special recognition to all of our citizens who have attained their majority or have been naturalized during the past year; and I call upon Federal, State, and local officials, and patriotic, civic, and educational organizations to plan and hold, on or about May 21, exercises designed to assist our citizens, both native-born and naturalized, to understand more fully the great privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in our democracy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the city of Washington this sixth day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-eighth.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

E.R. STETTINIVS JR.
Acting Secretary of State

3904

Völkischer Beobachter (March 6, 1944)

Der Halle Osten unter internationaler Kontrolle

Das Judentum im Zusammenspiel mit den Bolschewisten

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3905

Der Ton unter ‚Freunden‘ –
Britische Schifffahrt durch USA bedroht

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3906

Gangstermethoden als Staatspolitik

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3907

U.S. Navy Department (March 6, 1944)

CINCPAC Press Release No. 295

For Immediate Release
March 6, 1944

Aircraft of the 7th Army Air Force and Fleet Air Wing Two attacked three enemy‑held positions in the Marshall Islands on March 4 (West Longitude Date).

Army Mitchell bombers and Dauntless dive bombers, Navy Hellcat fighters and Ventura search bombers dropped approximately 35 tons of bombs and strafed ground installations. Fires were started and explosions were observed. Anti-aircraft fire was encountered, but all of our planes returned safely.

3908

The Pittsburgh Press (March 6, 1944)

Heart of Berlin set afire by 15-mile Yank armada

U.S. fliers smash through screen of fighters
By Phil Ault, United Press staff writer

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3909

German losses 24,000 at Anzio

Bad weather cuts fighting in Italy
By Robert Vermillion, United Press staff writer

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3910

Americans smash Jap unit in Burma

Veterans of Pacific fighting in action in new area for first time

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3911

500 Italians die in train tunnel

Stowaways suffocated as freight stalls
By Dana Adams Schmidt, United Press staff writer

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3912

Army officer runs amok, kills 2 women, policeman

Lieutenant wounds five others in early morning rampage before he is shot

Bulletin

Riverside, California (UP) –
An Army lieutenant ran amok early today at Camp Anza, killed two young women and a policeman, and injured five other persons but spared the lives of a pleading 22-year-old mother and her baby. Of the five reported wounded, only one, Ray Schlegel, Los Angeles aircraft worker, was identified. Schlegel was shot when the Army officer ordered him to pull over to the curb in front of the Arlington police substation while Mrs. Schlegel begged for the life of her eight-month-old baby.

Riverside, California (UP) –
Two young women and a policeman were killed and five others wounded early today by an Army officer who ran amok, shot his way out of camp, and killed a policeman who sought to disarm him.

The officer, identified tentatively as a Lt. Swanson, was shot three times by police.

The dead were:

  • Dorothy Douglas, about 19;
  • Lourdine Livermore, about 19,
  • A. B. Simpson, Riverside policeman.

The Army officer, identified tentatively as a Lt. Swanson, was shot three times by policemen.

The women were shot at Camp Anza shortly after midnight. The Army refused details of the shooting.

Police said Lt. Swanson commandeered an Army car at camp after shooting the women and forced a Negro sergeant to drive him into the nearby suburb of Arlington.

The car sped past the guard without pausing and the sergeant drove it to the police station. Acting apparently on orders from the lieutenant, the sergeant parked on the wrong side of the street, blocking traffic.

The first car to approach was driven by Ray Schlegel, 24, of Los Angeles, who was forced to stop. Schlegel and an unidentified sailor got out to investigate, leaving Schlegel’s wife and infant son in the car.

The Army officer brandished a gun and threatened to kill them. At this point, Policemen C. F. Cole and Simpson came out to investigate.

Schlegel warned:

Look out, this man has a gun.

Simpson and Cole spun around and simultaneously ordered Lt. Swanson to drop his service revolver.

As an answer, the lieutenant opened fire. The first two shots struck Schlegel in the chest, the next two hit Simpson in the abdomen. As Simpson fell, he emptied his gun at the Army officer, hitting him twice, Cole also fired and felled him with one shot.

Simpson died three minutes after reaching the hospital. Schlegel’s condition was reported as “good.”

The Army officer was removed to the Camp Anza hospital, where officials refused to say whether he was dead or alive.

3913

New Mexico curbs zoot-suit fights

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3914

Red Cross begins drive for 3.5 million war fund

Many groups active in advance of campaign; first report to be made tomorrow noon

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3915

U.S. soldiers reported fighting in Yugoslavia

London, England (UP) –
A Yugoslav communiqué as record by the BBC said today that a group of Partisans “together with U.S. non-commissioned officers under an American captain” attacked German positions on the island of Hvar below Split.

The communiqué from Marshal Josip Broz’s headquarters said:

The enemy suffered heavy losses.

3916

I DARE SAY —
Pigeons, people and pictures

By Florence Fisher Parry

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3917

Noxon’s story hit by doctor

Says death impossible way father described scene

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3918

WLB decision favors guild

Membership clause held no threat to press freedom

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3919

Hitler kin in U.S. Navy

New York –
William Patrick Hitler, 32, nephew of Adolf Hitler, reported to the Navy today for assignment to a “boot” camp. His father was a half-brother of the Nazi leader.

3920

americavotes1944

Anti-New Deal Democrats can’t decide on strategy

Program to block fourth term is developing along two different and almost opposite lines
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer

Washington (UP) –
Anti-New Deal Democrats appear today unable to make up their minds on strategy to prevent President Roosevelt’s renomination for a fourth term.

The belief that he will seek renomination is sufficiently indicated by the organization of pre-convention machinery to block him. But the program is developing along two different and almost opposing lines.

Former Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring, who left the Roosevelt Cabinet in 1940, is promoting a “third party” movement or general conservative Democratic bolt of Mr. Roosevelt’s candidacy, should he be renominated.

Indicates plan solidly founded

To this end, Mr. Woodring helped set up a Jeffersonian Democratic Conference which met last month in Chicago. After conferences last week in New York, he indicated that the third-party plan was solidly founded and that there were half a dozen or so Democrats who would be available to contest the presidential election as a Jeffersonian Democrat.

It is obvious that any Jeffersonian-Democratic presidential candidate who could take 100 or so electoral votes from Mr. Roosevelt next November would have obtained his defeat if the election were at all close.

Mentioned by Mr. Woodring as potential candidates are former Democratic National Committee Chairman James A. Farley, Senator Harry F. Byrd and former Massachusetts Governor Joseph B. Ely. Inclusion of these men among potential third-party candidates appears to shadow the whole program. Mr. Farley has told intimates that he would not bolt the Democratic Party even if Mr. Roosevelt were renominated.

Ely in different position

Mr. Byrd has already announced that he is not a candidate for the presidential nomination. Mr. Ely is in a somewhat different position. Moving boldly in Massachusetts against a fourth term, anti-New Deal Democrats have entered a slate of convention delegate candidates who would be pledged to Mr. Ely’s nomination for the Presidency. That was announced Feb. 20. It looked like a bolt or third-party threat.

But it appears now that Mr. Ely will not permit his name to go before presidential preference primaries in other states. therefore, the strategy in Massachusetts seems to coincide less with Mr. Woodring’s third-party plan than with the effort of other anti-New Dealers to obtain control of a big block of convention delegates for a convention floor fight against Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination and a do-or-die effort to prevent a New Dealer being nominated for Vice President in the event Mr. Roosevelt heads the ticket again.

Many Democrats, especially Southerners, who might be willing to fight Mr. Roosevelt’s renomination in the convention would not bolt the party to vote against him.

A leader of the Stop-Roosevelt group believes that there is some hope of preventing the President’s renomination by the strategy of preventing his supporters from lining up solid blocks of Roosevelt-instructed delegates and defeating him on the convention floor. He estimated that eight and possibly nine Southern states would send uninstructed delegations to the Democratic convention.

It is on that strategy of uninstructed or favorite-son candidates that non-bolting anti-New Dealers are relying. If they can’t lick Mr. Roosevelt in the convention, they will probably not vote against him.

Bricker: Local government No. 1 issue

Jacksonville, Florida (UP) –
Governor John Bricker of Ohio, candidate for the Republican nomination for President, said today that the big issue in the 1944 presidential election was whether local self-government shall prevail or “shall we continue the trend toward central autocratic control by the federal government.”

In Jacksonville to address the Florida State Republican Convention, he advocated simplification of the tax laws and a reduction in taxes.

Governor Bricker said that we must reduce the national debt. He said reduction of the national debt could start now with the elimination of needless boards and bureaucrats and that reduction in the federal payroll would not hurt the prosecution of the war but would help it.

Governor Bricker added:

Congress long ago should have provided laws to prohibit strikes during wartime. Congress should have provided a board before which misunderstandings could be adjudicated with fairness to both sides.

Advocating limitation upon presidential tenure, Governor Bricker said:

…continued occupancy of the highest seat in the land is a powerful weapon in the hands of the “ins” because of the desire of federal employees to hold their jobs and increase their authority.

3921

Gangland code of silence followed to end by Lepke

Mayor La Guardia: Murder, Inc., boss had many persons ‘sweating’

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3922

Army ‘bungling’ in tool sale due for airing

Senate expected to learn details of transaction which showed 98% loss
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer

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